Judge From Hell | Crime and Punishment

I spent my holiday rest finishing this Kdrama series that I started November and watched it intermittently because it was still coming out every week and sometimes I just want to go to the next episode.

Kinda weird to be watching a series that has this premise of a judge from hell, Justitia, played by Park Shin-hye sent to Earth as Judge Kang Bit-na to punish and kill remorseless criminals.

A series that runs contrary to the message of the current holiday season of forgiveness and being kind to people. Somehow that message of revenge, of seeing people get their comeuppance is deeply satisfying.

I'm not really in a forgiving mood these days as I feel that life is more and more unfair with how bad the politics are lately. How the taxes and contributions that we are paying are being used to fuel political patronage and outright corruption.

I feel that a boiling point will come but to what end who knows.

Back to the series. While I will say that it is predictable as Judge Kang Bit-na will handle a case, we are given some back story of the crime or the perpetrator that will make us hate the person or feel sympathy to their victim or even both depending how relatable the scenario is. We then get the judge to stalk and menacingly approach these criminals and give her judgement. Exacting an eye for an eye punishment to their crimes.

You can just turn off your brain and just revel in the revenge and karma that these people deserve. It is akin to the feeling of those that like watching serial killers documentaries that both horrify and make us curious.

There is something satisfying seeing someone seemingly untouchable like politicians and CEOs who think they are above the law, die without being able to do anything. That same level of helplessness that they give to their victims.

There is some level of lore of Hell, the powers of the demons, and even some motivations and emotions but I'm just here for the punishment.

It's not that deep but there was one particular scenario that I really felt invested in the anger and wanting to see the criminal punished, In that way the show was successful in getting us to feel an emotion and relate to the anger and wanting to get revenge.

It felt cathartic and while it is mostly fiction we can help but just hope for some karma to happen to our real-life criminals and corrupt officials. We can only dream.

If you want something that you can just enjoy, go ahead and watch it.